‘My autistic son had no safety net when in crisis’

In May 2021, Declan was moved to Yewdale Farm in Willingham, Cambridgeshire, a residential care home run by CareTech Community Services.

A safeguarding report entitled Something has to Change, which was compiled by the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Safeguarding Partnership after Declan’s death, noted there was a high level of agency staff caring for him.

Yet his father said Declan had “spent most of his time on his own as they [staff] couldn’t interact with him.”

CareTech said when Declan had been “responsive” to staff’s engagement, they would directly support him. If he did not want to interact, staff would sit in an adjoining room and observe him through a window.

At Yewdale Farm Declan had jumped over fences and assaulted a staff member.

In February 2022, CareTech said that it could no longer meet Declan’s needs and he needed clinical care.

Sixty-seven facilities across the UK were approached to care for Declan, but none were able to offer him a placement, according to the family’s lawyer.

In a letter to the government and the NHS, external, the coroner said: “Demand for such placements outstrips supply – providers are effectively able to ‘pick and choose’ who they offer placements to.”

“It seems wrong that a care provider can, at a drop of a hat, remove care, because there’s certainly no safety net behind that, because it’s just not provided for by local government,” Mr Morrison said.

“It can’t just be as simple as ‘we can’t keep your son or daughter safe’,” he said.

Caretech said it did not “pick and choose” its residents.